The point with Buddhism is that it doesn't just tell you to be good, it tells you how. It doesn't just say, "Don't be angry," it shows us the methods to help us not to be angry. It gives techniques for everything that it advises us to cultivate, and all the negative qualities we need to overcome and transform.

In our endless past lives, we've all done everything, you name it, we've done it. Good, bad, intermediate.

Actually we've got countless lifetimes, so relax.

This precious life is our opportunity. We are not the millions and millions of other things that are not human.

The problem is that our inherent ignorance keeps us in samsara and unable to benefit ourselves and others on a really deep level.

Most of the people I talk to are not going to go off and live in a cave. Why should they? So I talk about how people can stop separating dharma practice - going on retreats, going to dharma centers, hearing talks, reading books - from their ordinary life.

We make the commitment to stop for a moment and look at what the mind is doing, what mind state we are dwelling in. We don't judge it, we just know it. Gradually we'll become more and more accustomed to being conscious of what we're thinking and our various positive and negative states. We'll become more and more the masters of our mind, rather than the slaves.